Day 6

@Jgeats requires an explanation.

Why did I do it?

First off I wanted to get a little more comfortable with publicity on social media. I went from October 2019 - September 2022 without an Instagram post. Most of my stories were a picture of a golf course. I'm not a "bling-bling" or "showy" guy, so I never found the need to post myself in spots that I know many people around the world cannot access.

Well, I realize that in this day in age, an engaged social following is a big benefit/addition to the resume & brand-building.

We live in a creator economy.

In order to be a successful creator, step 1 is posting. And the step 1 to the step 1 (posting) for me, was learning to not give a **** what people think.

That was and still is difficult. I probably should read Mark Mason's "The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck."

The last time I had the house to myself was in February 2022 and I remember cooking for myself all week and loving it.

While living at home with my parents (starting end of July 2022), most of my meals were taken care of by my parents. It's just the way it is when mom cooks several days a week and there are consistently leftovers in the refrigerator at all times. Starting Labor Day, my parents were away for 2 weeks and I finally had the freedom to keep the kitchen in any way I wanted.

But this is different than when I was living in the city earlier in the year. I have a business account set up and have a decent education on business expenses. When I arrive at the supermarket, before even grabbing a cart, what's the first thing that comes to mind:

Question: how could I make food shopping a business expense?

Answer: If it is a marketing effort, then it's considered to be a business expense. TikTok videos = marketing for my business. Wow ok Jack I guess we're doing this.

I started with some stupid videos using a Wondershare Filmora thread over it while trying to save $10 off the cost of the software through student access given I didn’t think my videos at that point warranted paying those $10 extra.

Here is an example (pictured below)

After a couple more posts, my parents came home, and the momentum just fizzled. And something about momentum is once it's gone, it's 5x harder to bring back. Jgeats went under, but I think it was for the best.

Btw I'll be giving more TikTok attention to @extravirginguy soon.

Day 6 in Quesada, Andalusia, Spain: October 28th, 2022

Morning

Chilled out but unexpectedly some of the farmers/volunteers went to the field for "volunteer" work. I declined politely and opted to cook some food for them - quinoa with tomato sauce (served at lunch, took some for breakfast) over eggs and avocadoes.

Those Dominican avocadoes (grown in Spain) were fire. Smooth texture (easier to detect ripeness) vs rough and a sweeter aftertaste than the Hass Avocado.

Afternoon

By 12:00 after a second plea (my reaction pictured), I committed to helping for the final 1.5 hours. And I unleashed. I'm happy I went back out there. It was like one of those supermotivated workouts. Adrenaline inducing and I wanted to end on a good note at the farm.

Some more quinoa and veggies for lunch cooked by Quique followed by some more blogging, social media work, and travel coordination.

Got bored and some fun - a tale of two Jacks: the tool and the tool user

Evening

Tapas in the village. I was trying to stream the New York Giants [American] Football game but failed. Probably for the better from a data perspective.

Speaking of data I used 1.3 GB (gigabytes) of data within 20 minutes of landing in Spain! I never turned off Spotify automatic downloads over cellular.

I had no plan for Day 7 except to wake up at 6am and hike to the 6:45am bus.

1 Olive Oil Takeaway:

Brands claim that blended oils are bad, but this is an overgeneralization. Pretend we live in a world where restaurants served house red wine, no grape type revealed. Brand X comes out and says blended are bad and counters with "hey we have a Cabernet Sauvignon, the best grape in the world!" That’s unique enough compared to the market of red wines derived from unknown grapes.

However, this excludes a world of blends which compound the flavors of multiple grape varietals.

So while the blended 3-year-old olive oils from 6 different countries are bad, but a miller’s Tuscan blend could be one of the finest Olive Oils on the market.

-Jack

Thank you for reading and welcome to the blog! I'm traveling through Europe on a quest to find great Olive Oil.

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